The Great Indoors

Today we had an unexpected visitor in our kitchen, a bird. Yep, a real live bird flying around my kitchen. At first I thought it was a bat and I freaked. Bats are not high on my list of favorite creatures. In fact they might be close to rock bottom. Right down there with rats and cockroaches. Once I figured out that it was one of those little winter birds (A chickadee? A sparrow? I'm not a bird watcher. Sorry Dad.) I calmed down a bit and stopped my hysterical "eeekkk" ing and started worrying that it was going to poop on my newly washed floor.

I grabbed a mop and started opening every window and door in the kitchen hoping that with some gentle prodding the poor lost BIRD IN MY HOUSE would find its way into the great outdoors again. Apparently my bird-herding skills are lacking, however, as instead of shooing the bird out of the kitchen door I sent it flying through the rest of the house. Which alerted the cats and children to the crisis at hand as I ran willy nilly through the house screaming "Here birdy birdy, out the door. NO! NOT the closed window, the open door! THE DOOR!!!"

The two cats were useless, not that I wanted them to kill the bird, just scare it outside. One slept through the whole thing, the other was so excited by this turn of events that she just ran circles around herself meowing at the top of her lungs. A followed suit, except instead of meowing she screeched "Mama! Bird! Bird Mama!" C sat on the couch and cried. "I'm scared Mommy! I'm scared! Oooh ohhh! He went that way!"

After much screeching, meowing, crying and shooing, the bird finally found one of a few dozen openings to the outside. C sat back and proceeded to tell me how brave HE had been. A sobbed hysterically that there was "No more bird mama, no more bird." And the cat went in search of her food dish.

While I am all for nature and wildlife, I'm not so keen on such things in my house. I'm still very unclear on how the bird made it in in the first place, and will be spending many hours searching for large, gaping holes in my kitchen. And perhaps investing in some skill-building lessons for my cats.